The Investigation of a Novel Large-Strain Sensor Based on a Dual Capacitive Structure

Abstract

In this paper, a novel large-strain sensor based on a dual planar capacitive structure has been developed. It has the capacity of large-strain measurement up to 200,000 με (0.2 ε). The change in strain causes a measurable transformation in the capacitance of the sensor by relative shift of the overlap area between two capacitive plates, one fixed (i.e. fixed plate) and the other one movable (i.e. movable plate), and is thus converted into a voltage signal by a read-out circuit module. The dual capacitor structure was designed for increasing the initial capacitance and improving the resolution of sensors compared with a single capacitor structure. The experimental results showed that the sensor had a linearity of 2.29% full scale (FS), a hysteresis error of 1.146%FS, repeatability of 0.226%FS and a resolution of 0.5%FS, suggesting excellent performance of the sensor.